


why do memories hurt? (part one of "pain to forgive")

by no_mourners_no_funerals



Series: we’re all stories in the end / doctorxrose [2]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Amy is sleeping, Angst, Breaking, Cold, ElevenRose, F/M, Hurt No Comfort, I Will Go Down With This Ship, Memories, Retrospections, Rory isn't, Sad, TenRose - Freeform, Woman Wept (Doctor Who), and in love with Rose, rory being supportive, the doctor is sad, well a bit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-25
Updated: 2019-02-25
Packaged: 2019-11-05 17:06:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,347
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17922872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/no_mourners_no_funerals/pseuds/no_mourners_no_funerals
Summary: Remembering hurts. Eleven reaches his breaking point, and even if it's stupid he goes to a place that makes him remember. What does Rory the Roman's sleeping patterns have to do with a frozen planet?"He lost every single person he loved. He lost his people, his planet. In the end, all that was left was him. Never dying, never aging, changing, breaking. He reached his breaking point today. He allowed himself to be sad, to remember. Amy and Rory slept. He knew, that sooner or later, he'll lose them too."That is angstBut there is a sequelHappy sequel*happier sequel





	why do memories hurt? (part one of "pain to forgive")

**Author's Note:**

> Buenas Noches, Bitches! So I deliver an angsty twoshot  
> Well, the first part  
> the second is happier  
> Allons-y! (or should i say - Geronimo!)

_-Nooo!!!! Rose, hold on!_

_-Rose Tyler, I-_

_-Does it need saying?_

_-He needs you. That's very me._

_-You'll have a fantastic year._

The Doctor woke up, panting. He quickly scanned his surroundings. He fell asleep on the jump seat. Again. TARDIS wouldn't let him tinker with her, his usual distraction. Since **she** left, he avoided sleeping as much as he could, but sometimes even his superior Time Lord biology couldn't manage. Usually, though, he woke up even more tired, than he remembered he was when falling asleep.

Nightmares.

Canary Wharf, Bad Wolf Bay, Bad Wolf Bay again, regeneration.

He hoped that after he died, the pain will ease. Well, let's say that things never been easy for him. Never. He lost every single person he loved. He lost his people, his planet. In the end, all that was left was him. Never dying, never aging, changing, breaking.

He reached his breaking point today. He allowed himself to be sad, to _remember._

Amy and Rory slept. He knew, that sooner or later, he'll lose them too. Hell, he lost the love of his life, twice, how could he possibly protect _them_? Even if they don't die, they'll leave.

He sighed quietly.

During the 'night', when the humans were asleep, he sometimes let himself break down, grieve and curse his long life. The second they woke up, though, he was back to his happy, mad, smiling, childish facade. He mastered it perfectly along the years. It just needed a bit adjusting, whenever he regenerated. And no one suspected anything. Every time the conversation drifted to dangerous subjects, he answered vaguely and moved on. That was his life. Moving on. Never ending running. Just how Davros said. All those years ago.

_The Doctor. The man who keeps running, never looking back because he dare not, out of shame._

Never truer words has been said about him. His life is cursed. Outliving everybody he cares about. The universe hates him, nevermind how many times he saved it. Sometimes he just wants to reach his last regeneration already. The last of the Time Lords, finally off this world.

The Ponds will be up in a few hours. Then, his routine will continue. Next day of running. Running from everything, diving into trouble, to distract himself, _because he doesn't dare to look back._ He sometimes wished that Amy didn't remember, that he was stuck on the other side. In the end, he concluded that he would have too much time to think. Like now.

He wondered for a minute and made the most idiotic decision in history. He typed in the coordinates. He remembered what River did, after she jumped out of a spaceship, and though he had a hard time acknowledging that _maybe_ he didn't fly the TARDIS perfectly, he turned off the breaks and switched on the stabilisers. He didn't want to wake his companions.

The ship silently left the Vortex and landed softly. The Doctor sighed and went to open the door. He was greeted by chilly air and a silent night. Stars shone brightly, giving just the amount of light to see. The Doctor cautiously exited the TARDIS. Slowly, his gaze moved from the stars to the frozen ocean. The stunning waves, surrounded by a never ending night, bathed in starlight.

Woman Wept.

A hundred years passed since he was last here. A wave of anguish swept through him, but his eyes remained dry. He cried out his tears a long time ago. Now, it was just numbness, pain came when he remembered. So he ran. Because now, staying numb was saving his sanity. After all, his companions came here to see the beauty of the universe, not to deal with an old alien with issues.

He sat under a particularly big wave, his back to the ship. She hummed softly in his mind. He didn't answer. The Doctor remembered when he was here with R-, _her._ Skating between the waves, telling her stories about the planet, a little snowball fight. Happiness. It was so long ago, he regenerated twice since then, once since they said goodbye. Well, technically, they didn't. He ran away, as usually, before Rose and Handy broke apart.

_Does it need saying?_

For her, it did. For him, saying those three words, meant that he would never be able to leave her. And he had to. Had to leave her, because she deserved better. Even, if the "better" meant his own clone. He was human, though. He could give her what he couldn't. A peaceful life, without life or death situations every day. A _forever_ that would match her's. Her own happy ever after, one that the Doctor could never have. And he's alone again. Maybe not entirely, he had Amy and Rory, but they had each other. And he never told them about his previous companions. They knew about the Time War, but losing Martha, Donna and **her** was worse. Worse than the War. His ninth self wouldn't possibly believe that there was something worse than that. But there was. Losing these three people, people that helped him get himself together again, was terrible.

Martha - the clever doctor, the girl who walked the Earth. Whose family was tortured for a year, just because of her connection to him.

Donna - his best friend, the sarcastic ginger, the most important woman in the universe. Even the Shadow Proclamation didn't dare to argue with her. The woman who forgot.

And **her** _._ His saviour, his Bad Wolf. Who defied the laws of reality _twice._ The one person he ever loved with so much force. His compassionate pink and yellow human. Showing mercy to every living creature, including a Dalek.

He put his head in his hands and with surprise noticed that his cheeks were stained with tears. Rassilon, how he hoped that the Ponds were asleep. He stood up and started wandering between the waves, _remembering._

Pompeii, Donna persuading him to save one family.

New New York. Death of the Face of Boe. Cassandra.

The Game Station. The Bad Wolf. First regeneration since the War.

The twenty seven planets. Daleks.

The Master's death. Alone again.

Mars. He hated to think about that. Breaking the laws of time? Messing with a fixed point?

The Devil.

Canary Wharf.

Shakespeare.

Oods.

Sontarans.

Lazarus.

I am not amused. He still owed her ten quid. Maybe Handy will pay it off.

He didn't know where the tears came from. He cried silently mourning his friends, his _family._ How strange that was? He was grieving for people that were still alive. He walked up to the nearest wave and slammed his hand on it with all his strength. It hurt, but he didn't care. It hurt certainly less than what he felt inside. He leaned on the ice and slid to the ground. He had no idea why he broke down today. He wanted to stop the tears, he wanted to shut it out like he always did. But today, he couldn't. He hated himself for moments of weakness, he always felt like he was disappointing... someone.

His companions, because they're not here to deal with him.

 **Her** , because she would hate to see him like this.

Donna, because she didn't save the universe for him to whine.

Martha, because she was strong, perhaps stronger than him.

Sarah Jane, because he left her, but still didn't do anything for the universe.

This list could go on forever. Hundreds of names. He sat numbly at the base of the wave, looking at the stars, but not seeing their beauty, silent tears still streaking down his face.

•••

Rory slowly got up from the bed, he didn't want to wake Amy up. He slept shorter than her, usually woke up about two hours earlier - a leftover from his Roman life. He intended to go to the kitchen to make himself some tea, but after he left the room, he noticed that the TARDIS was more quiet than usual. Almost like they landed?

Impossible.

Still, he went to investigate. The console room was empty, which was adding to the growing pile labeled 'strange'.

He sighed. Where was the Doctor and why was it so freaking quiet?

With the lights dimmed, the TARDIS console room looked a bit spooky. Rory shook off the feeling. He looked at the door. He knew that when they were in the Vortex, you couldn't open them. He slowly tried nevertheless.

They opened silently. Instantly a wave of freezing air hit him. From the slit in the door he could see the Doctor, walking in silence. He thought about going to him, but he won't go out without a coat, he wasn't a Time Lord. He silently ran to the wardrobe room, which was closer than he remembered. Probably the TARDIS being nice. He took a jacket and returned to the door.

When he opened them, he stopped, astonished. It was cold, but beautiful. He admired the frozen waves, till he saw the Doctor sitting under one and looking blankly at the sky.

Rory frowned. What was this beautiful place? And why did Doctor land here while they were sleeping?

He slowly walked towards their friend. He noticed that his cheeks were wet and his blank eyes rimmed red. His frown deepened. What happened? He sat down next to the crying man.

"You were supposed to be asleep, Rory," the Doctor said quietly, turning his face away from his companion.

"Old habits die hard, I suppose. Gonna tell me what's going on? We can always sit here in silence if you want," Rory replied cautiously.

The Doctor sighed. Truthfully, he knew that if he ever told anyone the story, Rory would be probably that person. He doesn't ask uncomfortable questions and would rather likely keep it from Amy if he asked. He was quiet for a few minutes, then turned his face to the sky again, and started talking quietly.

"This planet is called Woman Wept. The ocean froze in a split second, thousands of years ago, when a Red Giant that was keeping it warm, died and transformed into the nebula you can see in the sky. I was here about a hundred years ago. About five years before I crashed into Amy's garden after a violent regeneration. Nevermind what it is. You have to know that you're not the first people I traveled with."

Rory rolled his eyes.

"Yeah, I figured that one out. Amy is still oblivious, though."

Doctor chuckled dryly.

"Yeah. You've always been... observant. Well, before you lot, there was a woman. Donna Noble she was called. Amy reminds me of her. Red hair, the whole wedding thing. I met Donna on her wedding day, she just sort of appeared in the console room. She thought I abducted her. Turned out that her soon-to-be husband was plotting with an alien and was poisoning her. Kind of. Let's not get into the details. She refused to travel with me the first time I met her, but then, a year later, she found me again and we saved planets together. Couple of months later, the Earth was stolen, along with twenty six other planets, by Daleks. For some reason, you two don't remember that, maybe because of the cracks, I don't know. Well, let's just say that Donna became a human-Time Lord metacrisis. She was a human with a Time Lord brain. She saved all of the reality, from being wiped. But a metacrisis like that can't exist. Human mind is just too small to contain all of the information. Her brain was burning. I had to erase her every single memory of me, to keep her alive. She will never know what she did."

Rory had a feeling that this was only the beginning of the Doctor's story, but it was already so sad. He didn't say a word, while his friend fell silent for a few minutes. The Doctor took a deep breath and continued.

"During the year after I met Donna, till I actually started traveling with her, I had another companion. Her name was Martha Jones. She was a medical student and developed a bit unfortunate crush on me. She saved my life a couple of times. Then, it turned out that I wasn't the only Time Lord. There was also another one, called the Master. He basically captured me, ruled the whole Earth for a year, posed as Harold Saxon, the Prime Minister, and... well, probably tortured my friend and Martha's family. He also took the TARDIS and turned her into a paradox machine. There was a low-leveled telepathic field, connecting every person on Earth at the time, and during the year I managed to connect myself to it. Martha traveled the whole planet, telling people to think about me in one moment. I took advantage and when the moment came, escaped and overpowered the Master. Unfortunately, his human wife shot him. He refused to regenerate. Again, I was the last of the Time Lords. And I guess I have to explain what regeneration means. When a Time Lord is fatally injured and dying, his body rewrites itself on a cellular level to save itself. I keep the memories and feelings, but my appearance, and usually personality, changes. Well, he refused and died. Martha left, because of her family and the crush I mentioned. Another companion that suffered and I lost them." The Doctor fell silent again.

Rory was torn between two emotions. Sympathy for the alien that lost so much and realisation that the life he led was really so dangerous. Yeah, they were to the ends of the universe, but they always made it. Now, he was listening to a story about people who weren't so lucky. The break was longer this time and the human started to wonder if this was it. Suddenly, the Doctor started speaking again, only this time his voice was far more quiet and the pain was free to hear. Rory's heart clenched in anticipation of what he was about to hear.

"I had three companions since the Time War. The last was Donna. Before her was Martha. But now you are going to hear the story of the big Bad Wolf. After the War, I was a different man. Dark, angry and in so much pain. Not long after I... well, killed my people, I landed in London, 2005. And in a shop's basement I grabbed her hand and whispered 'Run!'. We both saved each other's life that day. I saved her from the Nestene. She... I was going to die that day. Blow up the transmitter on the building and myself with it. But I didn't. Because, somewhere there, was a scared 19-year old shop girl from the Powell Estates. And I just couldn't let her die, because, after all, what did I save her for, then? After saving the day, in which she, at the time surprisingly, helped very much, I asked her if she wanted to come with me. I asked two times. I never ask two times, but it was one of the best decisions of my life. She agreed. At one point I brought her home a year late! But then the Daleks came, as always. I thought I killed them all in the War. Turned out I didn't. The Emperor survived. _Till he met me,_ she used to say. The only way to kill the Daleks, was to build a Delta wave. But I didn't have time to calibrate it. It would kill not only the Daleks, but the humanity on Earth and me too. I tricked her and sent her home in the TARDIS. But that stubborn girl came back. She obviously didn't know how to pilot the TARDIS, so she looked into her heart. The Time Vortex. No human, or Time Lord, can wield so much power. She became the goddess of Time, the Bad Wolf. She came for me, wiped all of the Daleks from existence and accidentally immortalised our friend. But the Vortex was killing her so I absorbed it from her and gave it back to the TARDIS. But as I said, no one was supposed to absorb it. I had to regenerate, I still have no idea how she survived that. I had the Vortex maybe twenty seconds and it killed me, but she had to control it for about _ten minutes_ and she survived. After the regeneration, she eventually accepted the other me and we were off traveling again. But then came the Daleks, again, along with Cybermen from a parallel universe. Because of that, the walls of reality were collapsing, both worlds were boiling. We discovered that every being that crossed the dimensions, the Void between them, was covered in, sort of, background radiation, void stuff I called it. So, if we opened the Void, they would get sucked in. The problem was that me, her and her friend traveled between dimensions too. I wanted, I _tried_ to send her to the parallel universe, for her to be safe with her family, but she came back, even though beside me, there was nothing for her here. We opened the Void and the Daleks and Cybermen fell in, one by one. But the activating lever on her side turned off. She caught it and switched back on, but the pull of the Void was too strong. She slipped. A second before she fell into _hell_ , her parallel father came and took her to the other universe. She was trapped on the other side. I managed to find a small hole in the void, but I could only project a hologram."

He paused for a moment and took a deep breath.

"I'm not asexual as you and Amy think, you know. She told me she loves me. The gap closed, cutting me off while I replied. Then, Donna appeared. The next time I saw _her_ once again, the universe was ending. She built a dimension cannon to come back. It was the time Donna became a metacrisis. But she wasn't the _only_ metacrisis. Donna also created a human version of me. Once the Daleks were defeated, I left _her_ with my metacrisis in the parallel universe. He was human, he would live as long as you do and had one heart. I have two, by the way. He had all of my memories and feelings, but he was human. He could give her the life I could never have. I ran away in the TARDIS, without even saying 'goodbye', while they were kissing after he told her what I never could. The walls are closed now and she's happy. That was a hundred years ago. And I still can't get over her." He pointed at their surroundings.

Rory didn't even pretend he didn't cry a little. God, with so much pain, how was the Doctor still alive? How did he manage to smile and pretend everything is okay, while he was dying inside?

"I was with her on this planet." And he fell silent again, but this time Rory knew the story came to an end. He hesitantly put a hand on the Doctor's shoulder in support. The Doctor slowly looked at him. Rory never seen him so distraught.

"You have to promise me that you won't tell Amy. You know how she will react. She wouldn't behave normally, she would tiptoe around me or ask questions. Promise me, Rory, that you won't tell her."

Rory nodded. Of course. It wasn't his thing to tell.

"I promise."

He wanted to know the name of the girl who stole the Doctor's heart, sorry - hearts, but it counted as asking questions, and he already was told more than he expected. The Doctor knew the look. Donna had the same one when she asked about _her_. He smiled sadly, the tears had finished flowing a long time ago.

"Rose. Her name was Rose."

They got back to the TARDIS and before Amy woke up, they were already floating in the Vortex. Another day of running from his past ahead.

**Author's Note:**

> Feels?


End file.
